Re: [FT] CPV vs. NPV

----- Original Message -----
From: "Allan Goodall" <agoodall@hyperbear.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2003 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: [FT] CPV vs. NPV

> On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 13:01:41 -0800, "Eric Foley"
<stiltman@teleport.com>
> wrote:
> >It _is_ true that tackling a really big ship of that sort is
something of
a
> >chore.  But it's not a great enough advantage that a well-handled
force
of
> >smaller ships can't take it down, as has been demonstrated both here
by
me
> >and by Oerjan with his test games of Kra'Vak escort cruisers against
some
of
> >my own older "Dreadplanet Roberts" designs.

> You weren't playing vector, were you? Try it in vector, with that huge
ship
> able to spin in place and I think you'd find the results different.

Vector just doesn't interest me.  The design rules were originally put
together for a cinematic setting, and break in a great many ways when
you go
to vector.  Call me selfish, but I'd rather not see the point system and
the
anti-fighter rules twisted like balloon animals in order to cure
problems
that crop up primarily in vector and aren't even particularly bad issues
in
cinematic.

> You do make a very good point, though. A point system is never going
to
work
> 100% in a game where you can design your own ships. It's always going
to
be
> possible to create a ship or ships that just are not worth the points.
For
> instance, you could make a ship holding nothing but PDS. It's not
going to
be
> much use against anything but fighters, so in most cases it won't be
worth
the
> points.

Exactly.  There are always good ways to use those points and bad ones. I
_do_ think my perspective is a somewhat unique one, as I'm one of the
few
people on the list who has played the game for several years using
_only_
custom designs and observing first-hand where the evolution in those
designs
seems to go.  We've had a lot of different ideas, followed a lot of
different half-storylines (I always enjoyed playing best when I dreamed
up
an alien race of some sort and then designed ships to fit whatever
methodology I'd come up with for them), and had a lot of different
results.

About the only constant has been that, at least within our group, I'm
far
and away the best tactical player in the bunch.  As long as we're not
playing a scenario where I'm pretty much screwed on purpose, I usually
can
always find a way to win, whether it's the time I took down a 4000-point
überdreadnought at a con with a squadron of four torpedo cruisers after
a
rather frustrating fleet action by the rest of the group accomplished
basically nothing, or the times I've had to find ways to dig myself out
of a
material hole in weapons choice against my brother-in-law.  As long as I
at
least spot myself a fairly sound design that can deal with a wide
variety of
threats, I can usually take a calm assessment of what I've got and what
the
other guy's got and figure out a way to make it work.  Not always... but
usually.

There _are_ a lot of ways for the point system to produce things that
are
just really gross matchups.  Soap bubble carriers are going to be
largely
impossible to beat for FB ships, and in turn are going to have an
equally
impossible time beating a fleet that's got enough defenses to stop them.
IMO, if you're going to play custom games, I think it has to be one of
the
first questions you have to ask yourself in evaluating a design:  "Is
this
going to be able to stop a massed fighter assault?"  One of the next
questions is usually, "Is this going to be able to handle itself halfway
well if I run into a really big ship?"	(This question usually
translates
roughly to, "Do I have either a good submunition hit to soften them up
early
or needle beams to kill their maneuverability from the get-go?")  As
long as
those two questions are answered to my satisfaction and the ship has a
fairly intelligent weapons mix along with it, I usually can find a way
to
deal with whatever comes along from there.

I do agree that the system isn't perfect.  But my own experience has not
led
 me to believe that it's so flawed that it needs any particularly
radical
changes -- everything that overdoes some element that seems broken in
the
rules always seems to have a serious weakness somewhere.  Big ships hate
needle beams, fighters hate scatterguns, etc.  One way or another,
there's
always a way to balance it out, as far as I've been able to tell.

E
(aka Stilt Man)